Professional Sleuth

Killers' Castle

by George Dilnot

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Chapter 1

A Lady in Trouble

“Oh, yes; I’ve certainly heard of you,” he drawled with closed eyes. “Your name is Brown, you were born in Australia, they call you Dude Joe, and your number in the Rogues’ Gallery in New York is 21,027. Let me see. You twisted a couple of million francs out of a British ship owner on the Riviera last year, grafted three thousand pounds from a planter in Paris a couple of months ago, and are wanted in the States for a discretionary swindle that you worked with Innocent Mike. If you—”

“Talking to yourself, Horace?” said a voice. “Your friend seemed in a hurry!” He opened his eyes and beheld the tall figure of Superintendent Garry Conrigan, of Scotland Yard. The elderly gentleman with the eyeglass was vanishing hurriedly through the revolving door. Elver stood up.

“Even when I was a curly-headed baby I used to think the habit of telling fairy tales was a revolting one. Our friend was about to introduce me to a sure thing in racing swindles.”

“Can’t blame him,” said Conrigan, as they passed out of the hotel together. “You look innocent enough to be a con man yourself. I wish I had your gift for appearing an innocent mammy’s boy. How was he to tell that you were a vice-president of the Elver Detective Agency? If you took after your father now, with his face of granite and eyes of steel, these things wouldn’t happen.”

Horace sighed.

“And they say that there’s nothing in a name. That’s what I put it down to. The malign influence of a moniker like Horace Augustus has dogged me all my life.”

He strode beside the well-knit Scotland Yard man, a long, loose figure, that yet to the discerning eye might have hinted at uncommon strength and activity when he chose to exert himself. A wide mouth and ingenuous blue eyes, combined with a pink and white complexion unusual in a man, and a mop of long, untidy hair gave some substance to Conrigan’s description of him as a “mammy’s boy.” Yet since he had left college he had assisted his father in extending the activities of the Elver Detective Agency, till now, with its hundreds of branches all over the United States and its affinities throughout the world, it stood as the most formidable existing private detective organisation.

The story continues … buy it today and find out if Horace Elver can find Magda Stewart before its too late!